Historic Surry plantation to be auctioned

UPDATE - June 26: According to Tranzon Fox, the executor of the Four Mile tree property will sign off on the sale as long as the price tops $1.3 million.

Original - June 20, 4:07 p.m.: History buffs with deep pockets, take heed -- a historic plantation on the James River in Surry County will go up for auction later this month.

Four Mile Tree, a 309-acre historic estate located at 7735 Swanns Point Road in Spring Grove, will land on the auction block at noon on June 26, according to auction documents from Tranzon Fox, the company managing the auction.

The auction will be held at the manor house located on the estate. The manor, which dates to 1745, is listed on the National Register of Historic Places and the Virginia Landmarks Register.

Four Mile Tree, named for the distance of a prominent landmark tree from Jamestown that settlers used to define Jamestown's limits in 1619, was claimed in a 1625 land grant, the documents said.

The property includes 200 acres of woodland, 80 acres of loblolly pine plantation and nearly a mile of riverfront, much of which includes sandy beaches.

The original manor house is nearly 3,700 square feet on the first and second floors. A late 20th century addition to the house added on about 2,230 square feet plus basement space. The house hasn't been used as a primary residence since the early 2000s and hasn't been lived in for the past few years.

A Texas man had been spending a few weeks each month at Four Mile Tree, overseeing rehabilitation of the historic property, but the plantation has largely been untended since his death a few years ago, said Bill Londry, a partner with Tranzon Fox.

The house was listed for $3 million by a Williamsburg broker as recently as this year, Londry said. There isn't a minimum bid for the auction but final bid is subject to approval by the estate.

Other historic aspects to the property include a caretaker's cottage built in 1753 and a brick-walled graveyard containing a headstone dated from 1650, the oldest positively identifiable headstone in Virginia and one of the oldest in North America. View the estate at Tranzon.